


Star-crossed

by War_of_Stars



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Assassination, Drama, F/M, Forbidden Love, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Mutual Pining, Romance, Romeo and Juliet References, Shakespearean Tragedy, Tragedy, because when it comes to these two we all know it can’t end well...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/War_of_Stars/pseuds/War_of_Stars
Summary: Francesca was a Pazzi, Lorenzo was a Medici, and in the end, that was all that mattered.These violent delightshave violent endsAnd in their triumph dielike fire and powderWhich, as they kiss, consume— William Shakespeare,Romeo and Juliet
Relationships: Bianca di Piero de' Medici/Guglielmo de' Pazzi, Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" de' Medici/Francesco de' Pazzi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Star-crossed

**Author's Note:**

> A brief note: All the quotes are from Romeo and Juliet (I just substituted Verona for Florence in the first one), and I’ve taken some creative liberties with the timeline for this fic, so it’s not fully canon-compliant. I hope y’all enjoy!

_Two households, both alike in dignity  
  
In fair Florence, where we lay our scene  
  
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny  
  
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean._

  


* * *

  


Francesca likes Lorenzo from the moment she meets him. 

He makes her laugh and he loves the arts as much as she does and he never complains that it is “unladylike” when she chases him around the gardens barefoot.

She likes him very much, even though she isn’t supposed to — but then again she is five years old, with no way of knowing the enmity that lay between Pazzi and Medici, and all the misery it would bring them. 

  


* * *

  


_My only love sprung from my only hate_  
  
_Too early seen unknown, and known too late!_

  


__

* * *

  


“I love you.” 

Young Francesca reacts accordingly to this confession, pushing eight-year-old Lorenzo into the fountain. 

He pops back up, chuckling, pushing himself back up, sopping wet. 

She lets out a disgusted sigh. “You are _ridiculous_ , Lorenzo.”

“Love makes fools of us all,” the golden-haired boy remarks, in a way that made it clear he is trying to be poetic, and failing miserably. 

“You’re the fastest runner I’ve ever seen, the best painter of turkey fingers, you like Ovid just as much as I do, and I love you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Mama always says boys blow hot and cold, like the wind. You say you love me today, and you’ll tell another girl the same thing tomorrow.”

“No, Francesca. I’ll love you forever.” Lorenzo says it so earnestly, wonder in his eyes, and she cannot not bring herself to laugh at him this time.

  


__

* * *

  


_Tis but thy name that is my enemy_

  


__

* * *

  


“Francesca!” 

They are playing in the gardens again when Madonna Medici suddenly calls her name, running towards them, and something in her expression makes the girl’s stomach drop. 

She is nine years old, and her parents are dead. 

  


__

* * *

  


Francesca and her brother are Uncle Jacopo’s wards now. He is a harsh man who continually impressed upon the children the importance of loyalty to the family name, and unlike her father, he did not like the Medici one bit. 

“They are ruining this city,” he tells her and Guglielmo, who are subjected to his morning rants on how the Medici are corrupting Florence and trying to destroy the good Pazzi name with their flourishing business. 

_They are selfish, opportunistic and greedy_ , Jacopo says. _Taking advantage of the destabilization of Pazzi leadership with the loss of your parents to gain the upper hand in business_. 

The last time Francesca had seen Lorenzo, she had tearfully bid him goodbye. 

The next time she sees him, standing there with a smile on his face in front of her home as if nothing has happened, she spits in his face. 

He is not welcome here, and he never will be again.

  


__

* * *

  


_Is love a tender thing?  
_  
_It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn._

  


* * *

  


Francesca respects her uncle, and she listens to her uncle, but Jacopo is a hard man to love.

He is a strict man, caring only for the bank and his feud with the Medici, and little else. He expects absolute fealty from both of them — especially his niece. Jacopo teaches her that it is her duty to obey him in all matters, and one day marry well for the good of the family. He has little tolerance for her or her brother’s mistakes, and at least Francesca is a quick learner, but her brother is not. 

She and Guglielmo have only each other for warmth and support, rubbing ointment on each other’s welts whenever Jacopo is in a particularly terrible mood.

  


* * *

  


Her heart grows colder as the years go on, her hatred towards the Medici rivaled only by Jacopo’s. Guglielmo is more hesitant, more inclined towards peace and reconciliation when it comes to their enemy, like their father.

Look where _that_ had gotten him, she would snap, and her brother would be silent once more. 

  


* * *

  


“Rome,” Jacopo tells Francesca, when she is barely a teenager. “You will go to Rome, to re-establish contact with some of our connections with the church, and review financial affairs related to the bank. Perhaps you can look for a good match while you’re there as well.”

Francesca wants to protest, but she knows better. So she goes, dutiful as ever, counting the days until she would be back home.

It would be years before she saw the bustling streets of Florence again.

  


* * *

  


Finally, she returns, and when she does Guglielmo is the first to greet her, hugging her fiercely. As much as Francesca respected her uncle and did her duty by establishing and renewing connections in Rome, she had missed the vibrant atmosphere of Florence. 

It was _her_ city, and it always would be. 

“Francesca,” her uncle greets her with a smile, but with less warmth than her brother. 

“I’m glad to see your mission in Rome was successful.” 

“Our affairs are all in order.”

She hesitates, before speaking again. “I heard there was an assassination attempt on the Medici yesterday. Were you involved?”

His smile is thinner, this time. “You have been away too long and forgotten, dear niece. I ask the questions here, not you.”

  


* * *

  


Lorenzo steps into Palazzo Pazzi for the second time in a single day, ready to confront Jacopo with their evidence. 

Jacopo does come out, making some remark about the Medici boys gracing them with their presence, but Lorenzo barely hears it at first.

For standing to the right of Jacopo is a girl — woman, now — that he has not seen since he was nine years old. 

A girl whose laugh was once music to his ears, whose smile had made the world seem brighter, whose wit had matched his own. Every passing day had only left her more beautiful, with glossy dark curls that fell over her shoulders, sharp cheekbones and obsidian eyes.

  


* * *

  


_Did my heart love till now?  
_  
_Forswear it, sight!  
_  
_For I ne’er saw true beauty  
_  
_Till this night_

  


* * *

  


Francesca starts a little at the sight of the man standing in the center of her home. He is one of the most handsome men she has ever seen, golden curls framing an Adonis-like face, chiseled features and a well-built frame, and she cannot help but stare.

“Lorenzo, I’m sure you remember my niece. You two were well-acquainted once, as I remember it.” 

_Lorenzo_.

Francesca nods towards the other boy, a little uncomfortable, and he freezes a little. For an instant, their eyes lock, and it’s as if everyone else has disappeared, and they are nine years old again, running through the Medici gardens and hiding from their mothers(though the chaperones were never too far behind). 

The moment passes, though, and it’s clear his mind is occupied with other matters as he turned back to Jacopo, and she rips herself out of the old memory, refusing to let his beauty or nostalgia cloud her judgement.

The Medici were vile, cruel, corrupt, and filled with greed. Lorenzo was a grown man now, he would be no different than the rest — the boy she had once known was gone.

Giuliano picks a fight, slices her uncle’s arm — how _dare_ he lay a hand on a Pazzi, but Giuliano had always been the worst of them, except Piero — and she’s glad to see him dragged out in cuffs, his foolish brother trailing behind him with only the briefest backward glance.

  


* * *

  


He forgives her. 

His brother had been beaten by Pazzi guards on her orders, but Lorenzo forgives her anyway. He speaks with the silver tongue that all Medici seem to possess, of letting bygones be bygones and ending old feuds, somehow replacing his own father as head of the family in the process. 

If she didn’t despise the way Lorenzo swept aside “old scores” as if this wasn’t just another political game of his, she probably would’ve admired him. 

And perhaps she did admire him despite that — but she would never admit it.

  


* * *

  


Lorenzo had a lover in Lucrezia Donati, Francesca soon found out, as she pressed Guglielmo for more information on their rivals. Though apparently they had stopped seeing one another shortly after Lorenzo’s trip to Rome, but no one knew why. 

She learns more about him soon enough, though, narrowing her eyes at the way he struts about at the tourney, holding the helm in one hand after his victory and pumping his fist in the ear as if he’s conquered the world instead of winning a joust.

 _Arrogant prick_.

  


* * *

  


Piero de Medici is dead, and Francesca burns with delight at the thought of one of the Pazzi’s foes being vanquished at least, even if her heart clenches at the thought of Lorenzo, his winning helm in one hand, staring at the corpse of a father long gone, as she had once.

  


* * *

  


Her brother is an idiot. 

Really, Guglielmo had always been a bit slow compared to her, not quite as good at managing finances or playing politics, but this was a new low, even for him. 

Running off with a Medici basically amounted to treason in their uncle’s eyes, and even hers, a little, but Francesca was far too worried about her brother now to be truly angry with him. 

She wants to send guards after them, salvaging his reputation, but Jacopo sends her to threaten Lorenzo instead, and she cannot refuse the head of their family.

So here they are, Medici and Pazzi, on opposite ends of the table, staring one another down in the first proper conversation they’ve had since she returned from Rome. 

“My uncle says you must break the treaty with Milan, or we will expose this scandal for the good of Florence.”

“So you hold your brother’s reputation hostage, along with my sister’s. But I will not sacrifice the treaty with Milan.”

“Why not? It’s just a treaty.” She stands up, moving around the table and closer to him with her head held high, refusing to back down. “What is this really about?” 

“Creating a true republic.” 

She rolls her eyes. “That is ridiculous.” 

He steps even closer, until they are only inches apart, his eyes boring into hers. They were so very blue, she thinks, more blue than she remembered.

“Ridiculous? Why do we have to accept the world we were born into? Why not make it a better one?”

Idealistic as always. She scoffs at his naïveté, but flushes a little at the lack of distance, despite herself.

Still, she will not be intimidated. 

“You would surrender your power and advantage to the common man?”

He denies that. Of course he does, but he insists he can save Bianca and Guglielmo without sacrificing the treaty. An impossible task, but his eyes only brighten when she brings it up as such, his insistence growing more fervent until she acquiesces. 

For the sake of her brother, she must.

His gaze lingers as she leaves, with an emotion she cannot identify, and one she does not want to contemplate.

  


* * *

  


Somehow, Lorenzo pulls off the impossible, getting her uncle to sign off on a marriage between Bianca and her brother. 

She does not approve of it, some Medici girl marrying her beloved brother, but she approves of her uncle even less, as he had disowned her brother in the wake of this mess. 

She does not understand how her brother can love one of them, but she cannot bring herself to love Guglielmo any less for his weakness. 

It is a painful thing to admit, but Lorenzo has acted the best out of all of them, salvaging their reputations, yet asking for nothing more than her uncle’s agreement to allow the marriage. All for his beloved sister, and keeping the promise he had made to Francesca. 

She does not know what to make of it, but she must repay the debt. 

Francesca hates herself a little for it, for slipping an herb into her uncle’s breakfast that brings about a brief sickness so he misses the vote at the Priori, but Guglielmo is her brother, and if he is not a Pazzi then neither is she.

The vote was tied, her uncle informs her later in his bitterness, and Lorenzo’s treaty has passed.

  


* * *

  


The Medici throw an extravagant masquerade ball to celebrate, inviting most of Florence’s nobility, and Jacopo sends Francesca in the hopes of attracting more prospects given her lack of success in Rome, still too bitter to accompany her. Guglielmo lingers near Bianca, but Francesca has her fair bit of fun dancing, and her last partner is the best of them all, a charming, witty masked gentleman who recites a sonnet the first time he speaks to her, though there is something about the tone of his voice that is vaguely familiar. 

On the third dance she shares with him, he invites her out to the balcony where they are slightly more obscured and twirls her around with practiced finesse, pulling her bit closer into his arms than strictly appropriate, leaning down and whispering, “An extraordinary coincidence, Jacopo being ill on the exact day of the vote, isn’t it Francesca?” 

She jolts, glaring at Lorenzo. 

“How did you know it was me?” 

“It would be hard not to. You have very distinctive eyes.” 

His fingers brush what would be her cheek, if not for her mask, and she freezes, slowly unclasping it as he removes his own mask, her heart racing in her chest once more, but Francesca had refused to cow before him in his study, and she refuses to do so now. 

The music seems to dim, her face burning despite the seasonal chill, his nose almost touching hers with how close together they are, the air tingling with a sensation she cannot identify. For a moment, she sees the spark of the boy she had known years ago, a boy she had assumed would be gone, changed. 

“It was just a coincidence, Lorenzo. You should be happy you got your vote.” 

“I am, Francesca. I am very happy, and very _grateful_.”

She stares into his silent eyes, all too knowing, and begins to think perhaps she does not know Lorenzo de Medici very well after all.

  


* * *

  


_And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury_

  


* * *

  


Lorenzo and Francesca see each other and speak often in the preparations for Bianca and Guglielmo’s wedding. Jacopo will not attend, but he allows her to go as she pleases, as long as she is accompanied by a maid or a guard or her brother. He cares little for her, the woman that has regrettably become his heir now that he has disowned his nephew and there are no direct male relatives that can inherit, as the true power will lie with her husband once she marries, and so Jacopo becomes more concentrated on finding a suitable match. 

Francesca watches Lorenzo, more intrigued now than anything, although she never allows herself to get caught in the act, always looking away when his eyes land on her. 

It happens more often then she would think. 

It is at one of these meetings for the upcoming wedding that she finds her way into his study. 

There are more books than she can count — Herodotus, Cicero, Plato — her Lorenzo has not lost his tastes for the arts, or his intellectual pursuits. 

She runs her fingers along the spines of the tomes, flipping through them. It is easy to get lost in the world of books. 

“Who is your favorite?”

Lorenzo leans against a bookshelf, slowly closing the door so it’s just the two of them. She stiffens, suddenly alert — Francesca has spoken with him regularly, but she is rarely alone with a man that is not a member of her family, and Lorenzo has cornered her for the third time now. 

“Your favorite poet,” he clarifies.

“I think I love Ovid most. _Metamorphoses_ is his most brilliant work, is it not?” His eyes light up with interest.

“I prefer his lamentations in _Tristia_ , actually, but it’s good to see you still like Ovid after all these years. I was worried you’d changed.”

He walks across the room, reaching her in a matter of seconds. 

“But you haven’t changed at all, have you?” he murmured, her curls fluttering ever so slightly as his breath brushes past. 

“Neither have you.” 

And he hasn’t, she finally realizes. He is still kind, too stubborn and idealistic for his own good, intelligent... he still _cares_. His actions with Bianca and her brother, and the treaty to benefit all of Florence, have proven that. 

Lorenzo takes a step closer, and suddenly he is _too_ close. Her skin feels like it’s on fire when his nose skims hers, and she should back away, she _should_ , it is all highly improper and she should _leave_ , as any self-respecting lady would. 

She will leave — she _will_ — just after she closes her eyes and leans in, the smell of old parchment, dusty books, and another scent that is uniquely Lorenzo filling her nostrils.

“Francesca,” he whispers, his hands resting on her hips, his lips hovering over hers as if asking for permission. 

She closes her eyes, leaning upward blindly, a fire in her belly, and he kisses her.

It was a biting kiss, a kiss that softened as it went on, a kiss that went from one borne of desperation to one that ached. 

She wishes she could say she acted honorably. Francesca wishes she could say she had pushed him away, decried his Medici name and the blood he undoubtedly had on his hands.

She pulls him closer.

  


* * *

  


_Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;  
_  
_Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;  
_  
_Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears;  
_  
_What is it else? A madness most discreet,  
_  
_A choking gall, and a preserving sweet._

  


* * *

  


It is not the last kiss they share; far from it. 

Guglielmo is too caught up in his own impending marriage to notice when she sneaks away. 

Often, they just talk in private of things that can never be stated publicly — debate poets and philosophers, but he always kisses her goodbye, each time igniting a fire that becomes harder to douse.

When the marriage is done, it is harder to meet up, but they find ways to be discreet. Their own siblings had managed it, after all.

He kisses her each time they meet as if he will consume her, and she’s afraid she might let him. Let herself be the object of his affections, his obsession, along with all his other art projects and dreams for the Medici bank and Florence. They are lofty dreams, but if anyone can achieve them it would be Lorenzo. 

Lorenzo, with his brilliant mind. His open heart. His gentle soul. 

Every time she visits him, it is harder to leave.

  


* * *

  


_Parting is such sweet sorrow  
_  
_That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow_

  


* * *

  


Finally, Francesca regains her common sense. 

She sits on his desk, clutching his arms as he kisses her collarbone, his lips going lower and lower, when a sudden moment of clarity hits her and she pulls away. 

“What are we doing, Lorenzo?” 

She is an unmarried woman. She has no business with this man — and to think she once judged her brother for doing exactly what she is engaging in now.

How terribly she has betrayed Jacopo, who has only ever wanted what was best for the family, and had trained her to behave with the same mindset. 

And here she is, selfishly throwing his lessons away for a man.

“You are a Medici; I am a Pazzi. My uncle will have our heads.” 

Panic blocks any words in her throat, and Francesca has half a mind to run out of the study then and there and never return, but Lorenzo grips her arms to stop her. 

“He will never know.” 

She blinks, stung. “I will not be your mistress, like Lucrezia Donati.” 

She yanks her arm out of his grip, an anger seizing her features. “I am not your _whore_.”

“I never said you were,” he says, cupping her cheek. 

“I love you, Francesca.”

It is the first time he has uttered the words since they were children, and all her fury dissipates in an instant. 

He continues, “Medici, Pazzi... what does that matter? I love you, and you love me, and that is all that matters.” 

  


* * *

  


_What’s in a name? That which we call a rose  
_  
_By any other name would smell as sweet_

  


* * *

  


“I need your help, Francesca. Find proof that your uncle is paying someone to undercut me in Volterra.” 

She hesitates, pulling away from Lorenzo’s embrace as they are huddled in the archway of her home, her uncle being away on business. “Jacopo is an imperfect man, but he still raised me, Lorenzo. I cannot betray him.”

“I know you feel loyal to him, Francesca. But together we can prevent a war and save untold lives.”

She sighs. Lorenzo had always been difficult to argue with.

So she betrays her uncle for him, ignoring the faint irritation she feels at Lorenzo for asking her to do this in the first place. He needs some papers to prove Jacopo was bribing someone, and she retrieves them easily, though her conscience is troubled as she hands them over. 

Jacopo is a miserable old bastard, consumed by hatred, Francesca tells herself. All Lorenzo is trying to accomplish is for the good of Florence.

  


* * *

  


“Marry me,” he whispers one night when they meet, and she freezes in shock. 

“You cannot be serious.”

“I am perfectly serious.” 

Francesca feels faint. “There is no benefit for you in such a marriage.” 

“No benefit? Francesca, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Marry me. How many women had heard that and ended up with bastards in their bellies? 

But Lorenzo is an honorable man. He would keep his word.

“I love you too,” she says for the very first time, and it’s like everything has clicked into place once more, the world tilting back into balance in a way it hasn’t since she was a child. 

His lips press against her, hot and insistent as he crowds her around the desk. She lies back, her mind hazy with the feel of his skin against hers, fingers lifting her skirts and skimming her thighs. 

He will be her husband soon, she thinks, mind still foggy with lust, filled with an overwhelming need for him as he easily slips off her dress, and she eagerly begins pulling down his trousers. 

  


* * *

  


_My bounty is as boundless as the sea,_  
  
_My love as deep_  
  
_The more I give to thee  
  
_ _The more I have_

  


* * *

  


“They say you’ve been spending some time with Lorenzo de Medici.” 

Francesca freezes, slowly swallowing her food, skirting her uncle’s gaze. 

“I met with him and the Medici a few times to prepare for the wedding, uncle. You know that. I haven't seen him since.”

He’s watching her carefully. Too carefully. She prods the food on her plate, tense, awaiting his next move. 

Finally, he relaxes back in his chair, and Francesca can breathe easy once more. 

“Of course, but be careful around the Medici, Francesca. For all we know, the boy may set his sights on you.”

She coughs. “I’m sure that won’t happen, uncle.”

“You never know. It would be awfully convenient if it did,” says Jacopo. “Two marriages with the Pazzi family — my disowned nephew and the niece that will inherit it all, and as I have no other heirs, he gets the whole Pazzi bank. It would be a good bargain for them, Francesca. Be on your guard.”

With that, he resumes eating, oblivious to how Francesca stiffens in her chair, a dagger of doubt striking her heart.

 _No_ , she reminds herself. _This is Lorenzo._

_He would not use me._

Except he had, he had asked her to betray her uncle who she’d once obeyed without _question_...

She shovels the fruit into her mouth, ignoring the growing pit of dread in her stomach.

  


* * *

  


“Lucrezia de Medici wants some woman named Clarice from Rome to marry Lorenzo.”

Guglielmo says it so casually, and it takes all of Francesca’s willpower not to react. 

“Are — are you certain?”

He nods. “Bianca told me. Apparently she has been trying to get him to marry her for ages now — that might be why he stopped seeing Donati a while back.” He goes on about something else, but Francesca isn’t even paying attention at that point, too caught up in his words. 

The next time she meets Lorenzo in secret, she slaps him across the face. 

He stares at her, annoyed. “Why—”

“Guglielmo told me your family is trying to arrange a match between you and some noblewoman from Rome named Clarice. Is it true?” She doesn’t even know how she manages to get the words out, trembling in anger.

“My mother... she is trying to arrange it, but I’ve refused! I was going to speak to my mother today about wedding you and convincing your uncle somehow. Francesca, I’m not going to marry Clarice, I swear to you.” He tries to take her hands in his to reassure her, but she pushes him away. 

“Why did you not tell me, Lorenzo? And what else have you been keeping from me?”

“Nothing, Francesca, I swear, I did not think it would matter if I told you about Clarice because I rejected the match—”

“Why are you so eager to marry me?”

She steps back, shaking, nearly falling to the floor before she grips the desk of the study behind her, too caught up in her thoughts.

“You want to marry me so that the Pazzi bank is guaranteed to fall into the hands of the Medici, don’t you? That’s why you didn’t tell me about Clarice — in case I rejected you, you could go crawling back to her.”

“Jacopo was right about you all along.”

It made so much sense, now that she was saying it aloud. He had been using her to uncover family secrets, using her to destroy his main rival. 

Lorenzo was no different from the rest of his family.

He slams his hand against the nearby wall. “That is not true, and you know it. I have loved you since we were _eight years old_...”

“People change, Lorenzo. Evidently you have. Don’t ever speak to me again.”

She turns around, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, but he would not have the pleasure of seeing them fall.

Lorenzo blocks the door with his arm. “Don’t do this,” he begs. “Don’t let your uncle’s vicious words tear us apart. Don’t let him drip poison in your ears.”

She wants to believe him so badly it hurts, but she cannot. The shadow of her uncle, of her duty to her family, looms large — it always had. She had just been foolish enough to forget it, for a brief while, but she would be played for a fool no longer.

“Save your pretty words for Clarice. I’m sure she will appreciate them more.” 

Francesca pushes past him, raising her hood over her head and ducking out of Palazzo Medici without looking back.

The Medici were the enemy. They always had been, and they always would be.

  


* * *

  


_Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!  
_  
_O any thing, of nothing first create!  
_  
_O heavy lightness, serious vanity,  
_  
_Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,  
_  
_Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,  
_  
_Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!  
_  
_This love feel I, that feel no love in this._

  


* * *

  


Lorenzo de Medici marries Clarice Orsini. 

_A man’s love blows hot and cold, Francesca. He will say he loves you one day, and profess his love for another the next._

Francesca does not hate Clarice, who is too sweet and naive to truly be disliked by anyone. No, she blames Lorenzo, and him alone.

She has spied for him, lied for him, and this is where it has gotten her.

They seem happy together, the few times she spies them speaking amongst themselves near the Priori or coming to church. She sees them laughing once, exiting the church after mass, and turns away.

Her courses have not come in two months. 

How quickly love can turn to hate.

  


* * *

  


_Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,_  
  
_Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!_

  


* * *

  


Uncle has arranged a betrothal for her with some Florentine noble, and she insists on a marriage as quickly as possible. The sooner the better. 

She tries to help Jacopo sabotage the Medici as much as she is able to, and her uncle seems delighted with her newfound fury against them. He instructs her further on the particulars of managing the Pazzi bank, so that she may be of some help to her soon-to-be husband when it passes to them.

A coup, he tells her one day, for the Medici’s fortunes have been on the rise. He is planning a coup to murder the Medici brothers, and he wants her to be a part of it. They will never suspect a woman. 

No, a part of her silently screams. She cannot — she had fallen in _love_ with the man...

The spectres of her parents and the fatherless child in her belly judge her in her sleep. She isn’t showing — yet. 

_Medici greed will destroy all of Florence._

_Duty to the family. Duty above all._

Her uncle was counting on her. She could not allow her womanly weakness to overtake her and betray him again.

She nods grimly. “Alright. What is the plan?”

  


* * *

  


_Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,_  
  
_And vice sometime by action dignified._

  


* * *

  


Her blade sinks into Giuliano's chest, over and over and over again, his shocked face turning slack. 

And then she turns to Lorenzo. 

He has a gash in his neck. One blow will finish him off. 

“Francesca, please.” He raises his hand, desperate. 

She pauses for an instant that seems to stretch a lifetime. 

A Medici and a Pazzi. They were doomed from the start.

She strikes, and falls.

  


* * *

  


They drag her before Lorenzo, and she does not beg for his mercy. 

They are far beyond that. 

She may be the woman he loved, but she is the one that killed his brother. Tried to kill _him_. 

Love would not end their feud; only death. 

Francesca closes her eyes as he delivers the sentence, not seeing the hand that lingers near her shoulder as if longing for something she will not give. 

She will hang with the rest of them.

  


* * *

  


_These violent delights have violent ends  
_  
_And in their triumph die, like fire and powder_  
  
_Which, as they kiss, consume_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The brief passages and sentences in italics are all quotes are from Romeo and Juliet(in the first one, I just substituted Verona for Florence)!
> 
> Also, I know the timeline of events does not exactly work out here as it does in the show, but I had to take some creative liberties for the sake of this fic. I hope y’all enjoyed, feel free to share your thoughts!


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